WHAT CONSTRUCTION'S BIGGEST CONTRACTORS SPEND ON R&D

Originally published on the Construction Briefing daily newsletter and website, the article shines a light on what the biggest construction contractors spend on research and development

CSCEC has built the Iconic Tower in Egypt’s new administrative capital

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Whether it is pressure to meet environmental goals, the search for elusive productivity gains, or simply trying to find an edge over competitors in the race to win projects, the biggest construction companies spend significant sums on research and development (R&D).

While it’s not intended to be a definitive list – some companies publish a group-wide figure for R&D investment that includes operations that don’t fit the definition of construction activities – it does give an indication of what companies spend, how that spend compared to previous years, and where their focus lies. Here’s a list of what the nine biggest companies spent and what their R&D priorities are:

1) China State Construction (CSCEC)

The company spent CNY 49.7 billion (US$6.8 billion) on research and development in 2022, on a revenue of nearly CNY 2.1 trillion (US$282.6 billion). The R&D spend was an increase of 24.3% on the previous year’s figure. According to CSCEC’s interim report for 2023, it spent CNY 19.4 billion (US$2.7 billion) on R&D in the six months to 30 June 2023.

The enormous figure covers the full range of CSCEC’s activities, which include design, construction and land development, as well as equipment manufacturing, asset operation and property management. It is also a specialist developer of supertall buildings in China of 300m and above. The company claims to have developed a scientific research system and to have undertaken four national R&D projects under China’s 14th ‘Five-year Plan’.

2) China Railway Group

China Railway Group increased its research and development expenditure in 2023 by 8.1% to CNY 30 billion (US$4.1 billion), on a revenue of nearly CNY 1.3 trillion (US$173.7 billion). It said it leveraged complex projects, including a series of high-speed rail schemes and bridge projects in China, the Brazil East-West Railway, and even the Zhongshan Station in Antarctica to perform research on a range of topics.

3) China Railway Construction Corporation (CRCC)

According to CRCC’s annual report for the year to 31 December 2023, the company spent CNY 26.7 billion (US$3.7 billion) on R&D in 2023, against revenue of over CNY 1.1 billion (US$156.5 billion). Its R&D spend in 2023 increased by 6.9% as compared to 2022. The company led research on the utilisation of deep underground space for future industries and prepared a special implementation plan for the large-scale application of China’s satellitebased navigation system Beidou.

4) China Communications Construction (CCCC)

China Communications Construction (CCCC) spent a total of CNY 27.3 billion (US$3.8 billion) on research and development in 2023, up from CNY 23.5 billion (US$3.2 billion) the year before.

CCCC described the field of technology and industry competition as a “battleground”. It said that it wanted to tackle the issue of “scattered” research and development investments and give national-level innovation platforms a more significant role. Its aim with its research activities is to create an “edge over its peers” in areas such as smart ports, smart highways, smart water management and smart cities, according to its latest annual report. The business claims to have 12 innovation platforms at national level and 87 at provincial level, as well as a further 31 at group level.

Vinci is one of the major companies working on France’s Grand Paris Project

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5) Metallurgical Corporation of China (MCC)

Specialising in the planning, design and construction of major production facilities for nearly all the largeand medium-sized iron and steel enterprises in China, MCC spent CNY 19.7 billion (US$2.7 billion) on research and development in 2023, a 5.3% increase on the previous year.

While it specialises in metallurgical construction projects, more than 70% of MCC’s revenue comes from housing construction and municipal infrastructure projects.

MCC said it had made progress in green, low-carbon and efficient innovations in steel and metallurgy. It has also devised a threeyear action plan to improve business systems, with more standardisation and use of digital management processes.

6) Vinci

France-based construction group Vinci said in its latest annual report that it is running 55 research and development programmes and has a €50 million (US$54 million) R&D budget. The company has developed an ‘innovation and foresight platform’ called Leonard. In 2023, Leonard’s work focused on emerging risks in the group’s various business, climate change adaptation, and the transformation in the mobility sector between now and 2050. Meanwhile, several hundred employees at the company took training courses in artificial intelligence (AI), while others developed applications for the company’s AI programme in areas like generative design and predictive maintenance.

7) Bouygues

Bouygues expensed €71 million (US$77.3 million) worth of research and development costs in 2023, up from €63 million (US$69 million) in 2022.

It’s worth noting that the figure is for the entire Bouygues group, which includes operations relevant to construction such as Bouygues Construction, infrastructure contractor Colas, and property arm Bouygues Immobilier, but also incorporates non-construction-related businesses like its TF1 broadcast subsidiary. In its financial report for the year, Bouygues Construction said it expected to see improvements in data capture and processing that would pave the way for digital twins, better workflow management, and a reduction in the gap between forecasts and outcomes. It is exploring eco-construction methods and the use of innovative, low-carbon materials. That includes bio-sourced cladding materials under the BIO4EEB project that won Horizon Europe funding in early 2023.

8) ACS Group

Spanish-based infrastructure company ACS Group, which owns Hochtief and Australia’s Cimic Group dedicated €25.8 million (US$28.1 million) to research and development investment.

It said the ultimate aim of its research was to identify materials that promote the resilience of infrastructure in response to increasingly extreme weather events resulting from climate change, as well as the re-use and better use of materials to reduce the consumption of raw materials.

It has also fostered alliances with different technological centres, research institutes and universities.

9) Shanghai Construction Group

While it wasn’t possible to obtain a figure on how much Shanghai Construction Group spends on R&D, the company has detailed some of the areas where it is conducting further research and development.

Within its building materials technology group, which has nearly 100 mixing stations with an annual output of over 45 million cubic metres of ready-mixed concrete, it is looking at different types of high-performance concrete. Those include innovative concrete pumping techniques for super-high-rise buildings, and prefabricated component production for superhigh-rise buildings, subway tunnels, municipal construction, public buildings, industrial buildings and civil buildings. iC